Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer, yet her cells--taken without her knowledge--became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first "immortal" human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer and viruses; helped lead to in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions. Yet Henrietta Lacks is buried in an unmarked grave. Her family did not learn of her "immortality" until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. The story of the Lacks family is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of--From publisher description.

This book explores the psychological conditions that promote the human potential for evil, relating medical killing to broader principles of doubling and genocide.

Undue Risk is an unprecedented and chilling history of the use of human subjects in atomic, biological, and chemical warfare experiments by the U.S. government from World War II to the present. Jonathan Moreno, a senior researcher on the president's special commission, goes where few researchers have gone before, exploring secret government documents which reveal a plethora of government experiments. He exposes startling details of experiments like those involving the exposure of soldiers to atomic blast fallout and secret LSD and mescaline experiments. From the courtrooms of Nuremberg to the battlefields of the Gulf War, Undue Risk exposes a variety of government policies and specific cases, including plutonium injections to unwilling hospital patients, and even the attempted recruitment of Nazi medical scientists by the U.S. government after World War II. New to the paperback edition, this exciting read covers recent objections by U.S. military personnel to required anthrax vaccinations and new developments in government policies on experiments involving vulnerable human subjects.

All investigators funded by the National Institutes of Health are now required to receive training about the ethics of clinical research. Based on a course taught by the editors at NIH, Ethical and Regulatory Aspects of Clinical Research is the first book designed to help investigators meet this new requirement. The book begins with the history of human subjects research and guidelines instituted since World War II. It then covers various stages and components of the clinical trial process: designing the trial, recruiting participants, ensuring informed consent, studying special populations, and conducting international research. Concluding chapters address conflicts of interest, scientific misconduct, and challenges to the IRB system. The appendix provides sample informed consent forms. This book will be used in undergraduate courses on research ethics and in schools of medicine and public health by students who are or will be carrying out clinical research. Professionals in need of such training and bioethicists also will be interested.